An Ajer in Alex: Whales and other rubbish

Have you ever wondered how you would deal with fame? Here's a simple test: try being an obvious foreigner in Egypt, and see how much you miss being able to walk on the street unnoticed. If the answer is "a whole damn lot", then maybe you should reconsider your desire to be famous.

Aaaaaanyway, I spent last weekend in Cairo with Flynne and Ant, and we started off with a very Egyptian experience, when we suddenly found ourselves tricked into a perfume shop by a new-won friend who might or might not have worked at the Egyptian Museum.

We thereafter went to meet a couple of friends of Flynne and Ant, and headed to Manshiyat Naser, an area more widely known by the less charming name "Garbage City". It is a traditionally Coptic area, where all the rubbish from Cairo is brought for the families there to sort through it and remove anything which can be reused or recycled. Some of them own small shops where they sell these recycled things, whereas other items are sold to bigger factories. It was quite a contrast seeing all the garbage in the street, next to pictures of Jesus and the late Coptic Pope. We stopped at a small, lcoal church which was swarming with kids. It was quite charming and some of the kids were very confident in talking to us. We had wondered how we as foreigners would be received here, but everyone was really friendly.

Maybe we should have expected that - I guess the inhabitants of Manshiyat Naser are used to people passing through their neighbourhood, as it houses the biggest church in the Middle East, Deir Sama'an. It is a modern cave church, built next to the mountain Mokattam, which due to Coptic tradition was moved by some Christian saint in order to prove a saying from the Bible. The church consists of several different church rooms, all built into the mountain. Many stone sculptures depicting different scenes from the Bible are carved into the stone. It was such a breathtaking sight when we came up there - it is really the last thing you would have expected in the midst of Garbage City. We got a free guided tour by a very enthusiastic Copt who relayed all the stories tied to the church with excessive gestures. Before we left we were provided with the business card of the church, containing its web address where we can watch miracles like excorcism live almost every Thursday. There are many miracles on Thursdays, you see.

Deir Sama'an

Inside the main church room

The relics of the late Coptic Pope, I think

Us and our guide inside the church

It's a Coptic tradition to tattoo crosses on your arms. I'm not sure I would've gotten it done at this booth, however

Stone sculptures in the mountain

The next day my namesake Hannah (minus the tiny spelling error in her name) who also goes to the ACL joined us for a trip to the oasis Al-Fayoum a few hours away from Cairo. I had been there once before in October, which you can read about here. This time the police insisted on escorting us, like they sometimes do here - they all seemed very eager to go on a day trip rather than standing by the road inspecting the cars passing by.

We first visited the lakes and the tiny waterfall in Wadi Rayyan where I went last time, but then we ventured into unknown territory: Valley of the Whales. It is a valley far into the desert, conatining whale fossiles from 40 million years ago. Makes the pyramids seem young, huh? As it turned out, you need a jeep to get to Valley of the Whales, and we were in a normal car. Luckily the police came to our rescue, and took us there in their jeep.

The fossiles in themselves were kinda disappointing - silly us for thinking that there would be huge whale skeletons lying in the desert after 40 million years. But even though the fossiles were quite tiny, there is something cool about seeing something so old. Even so, I would say that what was most impressive to look at was the astonishing rock formations there.

The police had asked us to be back after half an hour, and we walked as quickly as we could and only saw about half the fossiles, but somehow by the time we got back an hour had ended up passing.The policemen seemed to be a bit grumpy about that, and their presence soon proved to be a mixed blessing. When we got back to our own driver, they were clearly tired of driving behind our slow car, and sped off in front of us. We got out of our car once in order to take pictures of a beautiful lake which had come into sight - after being in the desert even the sight of water is refreshing. A while after, we caught up with the police who were waiting for us, asking us if we've stopped, making it out as though we'd lost each other due to our two-minute-stop, and not due to the fact that they had raced off, leaving us behind. They managed to thoroughly terrify our driver, and until we were out of Al-Fayoum again we were not allowed to make any further stops. We had to give up on some of the sightseeing we had planned, but what is worse is that we had run out of water, and that a pastry each for breakfast was all we had eaten that day, and we couldn't stop to eat or drink. I think you can imagine how great the mood was in the car for a while, as we were all extremely hungry and thirsty as we had been walking in the desert and it had been a long day. I guess the good news was that none of us had enough energy to be properly grumpy. It came as a relief when our driver had to stop for gas, and we could get some Coke's to quench our thirst.

A little while ago we had been so happy that we had the police escorting us, taking us to the Valley of the Whales, and now we were cursing their presence. Egypt is a country of extremes - you go from having great experiences and feeling immensely excited, to feeling utterly miserable and being so frustrated that you don't know what to do with yourselves. Life here is never boring.

It felt like we had been rushing around all day, which kinda defeats the point of a visit to Al-Fayoum: the charm of the place lies in its tranquility and peacefulness. We had an interesting and mostly good day, but if I ever go again, I will do my best to do as little as absolutely possible, and take as long as possible to do it. Then I will fully enjoy it.